story-telling

There are moments after moments in my life when I am in the midst of talking and I’ll realize: I’m telling a story.

I’m not just talking.

I’m story-telling.

And this moment is big. Because it usually means an audience. It means people listening. It means all eyes on me. And that experience is one that’s kind of new.

That experience is one I could not have pictured myself doing, let alone enjoying, even in a faraway land peopled with fairies and unicorns–until recently.

Recently, I have discovered that I like telling stories. I like it much better than talking. It fills me up and empties me out in a way that leaves me feeling nearly perfectly homeostatic. At peace. Which–if you know my history of anxiety–is such a different and also newish state that when it happens I take long moment to celebrate it–not matter what.

Story-telling is the balm of my life.

And sometimes, when I’m story-telling, if my husband Matt is in the room, he’ll catch something. I’ll relay something flavoured by my own perception. I’ll mish-mash two different experiences into one. I’ll describe the weather, which was partly sunny, as “holy awful.” And Matt will say, “But it wasn’t quite like that.”

On the train the other day I heard a guy say to his friend, as he told a story to him, “I’m putting relish on it.” Which is exactly the thing, for a story-teller. We relish it.

We’re not talking. We’re story-telling.

All of which is to say that there may be times when, if he were in the room as I was telling this story–the one you just read–Matt may say, “It wasn’t quite like that.”